A Lesson for the Cyclops

Chapter 24

The Cyclops stared at the tent flap, frozen in astonishment. Then the thought began to sink in: D’Arbignal was going to murder Conchinara!

At first, the Cyclops was paralyzed by confusion and indecision. Then the call to action screamed louder in her ears.

D’Arbignal was going to murder Conchinara!

The Cyclops sprinted from her tent, calling D’Arbignal’s name. It would be her fault if he killed Conchinara, and she needed no other crimes on her conscience.

“D’Arbig—!” she started to call again, but stopped abruptly no more than three steps from her tent. D’Arbignal was standing next to Pahula, gazing at her tattooed chest with intense interest.

“Yees,” Pahula said, pleased, but her voice tinted with suspicion, “it deed hurt a lot when they make this one.”

D’Arbignal clicked his tongue sympathetically. “I can imagine. Still, it’s more than beautiful: it’s a masterpiece!”

The Tattooed Lady blushed. “Thank you, Meester D’Arbignal.”

“No ‘Mister’,” he said. “Just D’Arbignal will suf—” He saw the Cyclops now. “Ah! You’ll have to excuse me; my date has arrived.”

Pahula’s eyes narrowed. “Your date?”

D’Arbignal winked and strode back to the Cyclops.

“I thought you were going to kill Conchinara,” the Cyclops whispered, herding D’Arbignal back into her tent.

“So what of it?” he said, as though discussing the weather. “You cheated on your fiancé when you were—what?—twenty?”

“Sixteen,” she said.

“Sixteen. You cheated on him when you were sixteen, and for that, you deserved to be tortured, humiliated, and scarred for the rest of your life. Conchinara was trying to cheat on her husband; I figure that if a sixteen-year-old girl deserved what you did, then an adult like her certainly deserves to die for her deeds. Do you disagree?”

“What?” the Cyclops said. “Yes. I mean no. I mean—”

“Well, which is it? Either you deserve what happened to you, in which case Conchinara deserves a good murdering, perhaps with a dash of torture thrown in for seasoning, or your punishment was far in excess of what you possibly could have deserved. Which is it?”

The Cyclops’s mind reeled. “It’s … it’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is. A sixteen-year-old girl makes a single mistake, and for that, she deserves to suffer every minute of the rest of her life, right?”

“But … Hernando killed him—”

“Oh right, I forgot about that. That was an impressive trick! How, exactly, did you take over his body from such a great distance and make him hang himself? That seems like a useful skill. Can you teach it to me?”

“It wasn’t like that,” she protested. “I mean, I made him do it, but—”

“For a woman with such poor self-esteem, you’re giving yourself an awful lot of credit,” he said. “You managed to strip the boy of his free will. You controlled his mind so thoroughly that you forced him to hang himself. That’s quite a boast! I mean, I’ve been known to tell a few tall tales in my time, but I’ve never bragged about something that ludicrous before!”

D’Arbignal laughed, and it was not a kind laughter. There was mockery in it.

Fury rose up in the Cyclops’s heart. She had revealed her deepest secret, and he was taunting her about it.

Without realizing it, she slapped him hard across the face. She gasped and looked at her hand as though it were alien to her.

“That’s more like it,” D’Arbignal said, his voice gentle again. He put his hand on her chest, and she gasped.

“There’s a human heart beating beneath this skin,” he said. “Humans make mistakes, especially young ones. And you know what? Hernando was human, too, and he also was young, and he, too, made mistakes. Ending his own life was the biggest mistake there is.

“You don’t get to take responsibility for what other people do. They make their own decisions. Alfredo may be an obnoxious boor, but that didn’t force Conchinara to come to my tent. You may have been a brainless girl, but that didn’t force the Duke to take your virginity. It didn’t force him to take you away from your home. It didn’t force your father to disown you. It didn’t force poor, stupid Hernando to commit suicide. And it didn’t force his parents to exact such a horrible vengeance on you.

“They made their own decisions,” D’Arbignal said. “You made your mistake, and they made theirs. And by the Icy Inferno, you’ve paid more for your mistake than any woman ever should.”

“I’m not a woman,” she said. “I’m a thing.”

D’Arbignal leaned in and kissed her once, gently on the lips. She felt her legs turn to rubber.

“No,” he said, “you’re a woman. Trust me: I have plenty of experience with women.”

The Cyclops stared at him, open-mouthed.

D’Arbignal adjusted the lace on his shirt. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a show to put on.”

He moved to exit the tent.

“But …” the Cyclops said, her mind spinning.

“Yes?” He lingered at the exit.

She fumbled for words. She couldn’t think.

“You … you said you had another item for me in your bag?”

D’Arbignal grinned, and his smile lit up her heart.

“Meet me by the creek tonight after we shut down, and I’ll show you,” he said and left.